Chapter 123: Looking At Chelsea

"That was a wonderful game," Saint had said after the final whistle.

"Wonderful, my foot," was the mood of the press room. Nothing about the match had been wonderful, and once Villa scored it had put half the country to sleep.

An odd thing had happened in that round of fixtures. Almost all the traditional giants of the league had stumbled at the same time, and several of them had been held by teams they were expected to beat comfortably.

United had been held by a side nobody expected to trouble them, and another top club had dropped points against a promoted side. The round had been a golden chance for one of the big names to pull clear of the pack, but when it was over everyone’s points were still level: two wins and a draw, seven points each.

After three rounds, five clubs in the table sat on seven points, namely United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool.

Behind them sat Villa. Seventh in the table, six points from three games, the same total as another side, though behind on goal difference.

Seventh place was a ranking Villa supporters could scarcely have imagined. With only three league games played, the fans were already happy, and as far as many of them were concerned this might well be the highest position the club would reach all season.

It wasn’t only Villa’s own people who thought so. The media believed the table meant nothing yet, and that within a few rounds Villa would drop back to where they belonged.

In fact, they did not even have to wait a few rounds, because in the next round Villa would suffer their second defeat of the season. That was the prediction of most pundits, since next up was Chelsea, managed by Martin Hallam.

In recent years Chelsea under Hallam had been at their peak, and two seasons earlier the club had won the league again, collecting their latest championship trophy.

Last season, however, Hallam had fallen out badly with the chairman, because the board had not brought in the players he had asked for.

It was rumoured that after winning the league and almost winning it a second time, the chairman had felt the club was already the strongest in England and perhaps in Europe, so there was little need to strengthen.

Chelsea finished a single point off the top that year, and the following season they slipped from champions to also-rans. That clash was one reason a key defender had left the club.

This summer had been worse than just a few departures. Hallam had very nearly walked out himself, and though he had stayed in the end, the summer’s recruitment had been anything but smooth.

At Hallam’s request, Chelsea had set their sights on a top-class centre-back, but a rival club moved first on their main target, and the second choice, a young Brazilian centre-back from the Bundesliga, was snapped up elsewhere too.

That sort of boardroom scheming had upset more than just the rivals. It had upset the whole league, and if the Brazilian had joined Chelsea as Hallam wanted, the Chelsea back line would have been the strongest in Europe.

In the end, after two failed attempts, Chelsea turned their attention to the Netherlands, home of the most famous young-player factory in Europe, and paid fifteen million pounds for a Dutch captain from Amsterdam. It was their biggest signing of the summer.

It was also one of only a handful of arrivals. Plenty of players had been linked with Stamford Bridge, but apart from the Dutchman only a couple of youngsters had actually turned up.

Compared with Villa, Chelsea had hardly changed this summer, but their squad was worth far more than Villa’s. One of their bench players was valued above most of Villa’s entire starting eleven.

The media had started stirring, and even the people around Saint began whispering about Chelsea in his ear, and about London’s golden boy, Jamie Strickland.

"Mate, you keep going on about it. Time’s passing minute by minute, and before Chelsea we still have a League Cup tie to play," Saint said, looking helplessly at Jasper.

"I don’t care. You promised me you’d beat Chelsea, and I want that smug pretty boy put in his place." It was said that Jasper and Imogen were on the verge of splitting up, and the two friends were suffering together.

Saint had been thinking a great deal. He and Grace had in fact reached the same edge, with neither willing to be the first to bow their head.

In his quiet moments he had admitted one thing to himself. In Grace’s heart, career mattered more than love, and Saint discovered he was exactly the same.

If Grace had asked him to choose between the job and her, he would eventually have picked the job, and yet he was demanding that she give up the runway.

That made him the more selfish of the two, because Saint was possessive and old-fashioned about these things.

On top of that, their outlooks and values clashed on a number of points. Even without this row, sooner or later some other quarrel would have ended things.

Saint also realised that although he cared for Grace, he did not want to marry her. What he had said in the heat of the argument had been impulsive, or perhaps just a way to make her give up her career.

The weeks apart had shown him a lot. Of course, the most important thing in his life right now was the football, in the league and in the cup, and he needed this team to go further.

So Villa welcomed a third-tier side in the League Cup, and because the opposition were weak, Saint fielded an almost entirely changed team.

At the back Crichton started, with Gamble and Lindley as the centre-back pairing, and in midfield Monroe got a start alongside Finch.

In the end Villa won easily, three nil, with goals from Salerno, Osei and Finch.

It was the sort of game that was forgotten by the following morning, which suited Saint perfectly. The young lads got ninety minutes of experience, the senior men rested their legs, and nobody was hurt. Monroe in particular looked comfortable in the holding role, spreading passes to both wings with the quiet assurance Saint had been hoping to see.

"He’s learning from Marco," Cadman remarked at the final whistle. "You can see it in the way he sets his feet."

"That’s the idea," Saint said. He had put Monroe next to Reyes in training on purpose, and it was beginning to pay off.

Afterwards the squad boarded the coach in good spirits, but Saint’s mind had already moved on. In the quiet of the back seat he opened his notebook and wrote a single word at the top of a blank page: Chelsea. Underneath it he drew a line down the middle, strengths on one side and weaknesses on the other.

The strengths column filled up quickly. The weaknesses column, for now, had one short entry, and he stared at it for a long time before closing the book.

Whatever happened on the day, he knew this game would tell him exactly where his young side stood among the giants.